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67 WALL STREET, New York - October 28, 2013 - The Wall Street Transcript has just published its Health Care IT Report offering a timely review of the sector to serious investors and industry executives. This special feature contains expert industry commentary through in-depth interviews with public company CEOs and Equity Analysts. The full issue is available by calling (212) 952-7433 or via The Wall Street Transcript Online.

In the following excerpt from the Health Care IT Report, the CEO and President of Merge Healthcare Incorporated (MRGE) discusses company strategy and the outlook for this vital industry:

TWST: What's the competitive landscape like for you, and what do you see as some of your competitive advantages?

Mr. Dearborn: We break it down into three main groups of competitors for our cardiology and our interoperability divisions. First, there are the traditional modality suppliers: GE, Philips, Agfa, Carestream, etc. They sell MRI machines or CT scanners, and in the past they have attempted to really leverage the sale of one of those devices to sell software solutions. They all have formidable installed bases, but we think the days of bundling software into a bigger modality purchase are behind us. Purchasing groups are way too sophisticated today, and they require all the components be separated out and quoted separately.

When those competitors do quote separately, they charge real money. They don't feel the need to give it away. Those are all big-brand companies, so they are not out to try to win a brand by undercutting on the pricing. That's a positive for us. Our competitive edge against that group is delivering superior solutions at a slight cost advantage. We think that since we're only in the software business, we have a finer focus on delivery these solutions.

The second group we look at is traditional health care IT vendors, such as McKesson. We view this group as our most competitive group. I believe our solutions are superior, but some of the larger vendors, including McKesson, have great reach. They are in nearly every hospital, and that's really our challenge against them. Sometimes they lack the focus, because they have a huge product portfolio. Imaging is the focus of our company, and we're one of the larger imaging players on the software side. Even though we may have a slight disadvantage in reach, we offset that limitation with an extensive partner network. Folks like Cerner or Hyland or EMC help us expand our reach alongside our direct sales team.

Our third competitive group is...

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